Author: Tal M. Klein
Narrator:Matthew Mercer
Length: 8 hours 42 minutes
Publisher: Audible Studios
Released: Jul. 25, 2017
Genre: Tecnothriller
It’s the year 2147. Advancements in nanotechnology have enabled us to control aging. We’ve genetically engineered mosquitoes to feast on carbon fumes instead of blood, ending air pollution. And teleportation has become the ideal mode of transportation, offered exclusively by International Transport—a secretive firm headquartered in New York City. Their slogan: Departure… Arrival… Delight!
Joel Byram, our smartass protagonist, is an everyday twenty-second century guy. He spends his days training artificial intelligence engines to act more human, jamming out to 1980’s new wave—an extremely obscure genre, and trying to salvage his deteriorating marriage. Joel is pretty much an everyday guy with everyday problems—until he’s accidentally duplicated while teleporting.
Now Joel must outsmart the shadowy organization that controls teleportation, outrun the religious sect out to destroy it, and find a way to get back to the woman he loves in a world that now has two of him.
Tal M. Klein was born in Israel, grew up in New York, and currently lives in Detroit with his wife and two daughters. When she was five years old, his daughter Iris wrote a book called I’m a Bunch of Dinosaurs that went on to become one of the most successful children’s book projects on Kickstarter ―something that Tal explained to Iris by telling her, “your book made lots of kids happy.” Iris then asked Tal, “Daddy, why don’t you write a book that makes lots of grownups happy?” Tal mulled this over for a few years, and eventually wrote his first book, The Punch Escrow. It won the Inkshares Geek & Sundry Hard Science Fiction publishing contest, and is the first book published on the Geek & Sundry imprint.
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Matthew Christopher Miller, known professionally as Matthew Mercer or Matt Mercer, is an American voice actor involved in English dubs of Japanese anime as well as cartoons, films and video games. In anime shows, he voiced Levi in Attack on Titan, Kiritsugu Emiya in Fate/Zero, Kanji Tatsumi for episodes 13-26 in Persona 4: The Animation and Trafalgar Law in the Funimation dub of One Piece. In video games, he voices Leon S. Kennedy in the Resident Evil series, Jack Cooper in Titanfall 2, Chrom in Fire Emblem Awakening, McCree in Overwatch, MacCready in Fallout 4 and Yusuke Kitagawa in Persona 5. In addition to voice-over, Mercer has developed some live-action web series including a Nintendo character parody called “There Will Be Brawl” and the famous Geek & Sundry and Alpha Dungeons & Dragons gaming session show “Critical Role.” The Punch Escrow is his first audiobook.
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I hadn’t read The Punch Escrow before this tour, although I did have a copy of it on my shelf for a while, but the problem is, I don’t have as much time as I used to read, so I’ve taken to listening to audiobooks at night when everyone else is asleep, and I’ve been loving it.
So when I had the chance to be a part of the audiobook tour, I was super excited – I was not only going to finally have the chance to sit down and check out a book I’ve been wanting to for a while, but it was an audiobook, which made the whole experience even cooler.
I’m not going to talk too much about the general plot of the book, but instead I want to focus on the overall audiobook itself, and why I liked it so much.
The narrator, Matt Mercer, did such an amazing job narrating this book. I honestly don’t think they could have chosen someone else to do this as perfectly as he did. He read with such emotion and emphasis at all the right parts that the entire story was just all around me, and it was like I had been taken away to a completely new place. Now if that’s not the best part of an audiobook (aside from allowing me to unwind after a long day), then I don’t know what is. The whole listening experience was just a fantastic one.
The actual story itself was really interesting – I had a lot of fun listening to it because it did that perfectly enjoyable thing of flowing naturally and being so well written that I really felt the book come to life (and with the narration, this was even more of a plus).
I don’t read a lot of books in this genre, but this one just seemed like it was going to be completely different from anything else that I had read (or listened to), and I was right – it really was. Because I read (listened to, in this case), this book and loved it, I’m probably going to be searching out more reads in this genre, as well as other books that are narrated by Matt Mercer.
If you’re a fan of science fiction and really want an audiobook to listen to while you drive, cook, or just unwind and relax, this is a really great one to check out. It’s so much fun, and there isn’t a boring moment to be had!
I received this audiobook as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Tal M. Klein. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.
Q&A with Author Tal M. Klein
- How did you select your narrator, Matthew Mercer?
I always knew I wanted Matt Mercer to narrate my book, the hard part was getting him to agree to do it. Between Critical Role and his various Nerdist responsibilities, he’s also an incredibly prolific voice actor. Recording an audiobook is a serious time commitment! There was also the challenge of getting Audible to agree to having Matt do the book because he’d never done an audiobook before. Ultimately I got lucky in that Matt read my book, liked it, agreed to do the audiobook, and Audible was easily convinced to sign off once they heard his voice acting reel. The rest is history!
- How closely did you work with Matthew before and during the recording process? Did you give him any pronunciation tips or special insight into the characters?
Matt is a consumate professional. We did one session on pronounciation, but everything else was entirely in his court. I wanted him to make my book is canvas. He did an outstanding job.
- How do you manage to avoid burn-out? What do you do to maintain your enthusiasm for writing?
The Inkshares community is incredibly supportive, so they are owed a lot of credit, but my wife deserves the lion’s share. She was my rock throughout the writing process and the book would have never gotten finished without her support and enthusiasm.
- Are you an audiobook listener? What about the audiobook format appeals to you?
I love audiobooks, though I tend to prefer listening to nonfiction. One of the reasons I was so particular about choosing Matt Mercer to do my book is because I knew he would give each chracter a unique voice. I feel like many fiction audiobooks lose me when they are narrated in monotone.
- Is there a particular part of this story that you feel is more resonating in the audiobook performance than in the book format?
Nothing beats Matt Mercer singing Karma Chameleon. That alone is worth the price of admission in my humble opinion.
- What do you say to those who view listening to audiobooks as “cheating” or as inferior to “real reading”?
I think the two experiences are distinctly different. As I mentioned, I rarely listen to fiction audiobooks, but when I do it’s usually after I’ve already read the book.
- How did you celebrate after finishing this novel?
A bottle of expensive bubbly with my family and friends!
The Punch Escrow Giveaway: The Punch Escrow Prize Pack
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I’ve read and absolutely loved this book! I wonder how it would sound on audio. Probably good 🙂
P.S. I love this comment writing font of yours 😀
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I haven’t tried fiction audio books but this sounds exciting.
Great post! I actually really like the narrator’s voice for this one! I LOVED reading this book!
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I haven’t tried fiction audio books but this sounds exciting. dont waste time quote
Perfect audiobook review. I really like the narration.
ITS VERY HELP FUL AND VERY INFORMATIVE POST.THANK YOU.